Brightly Burning(91)

My eyes flicked down to my skirts, but it appeared black-on-black to me. Then I noticed my hands, stained dark red, nearly brown.

“Come on.” He grabbed my hand, pulling me through the grass. The reeds thinned to reveal a stream of burbling, glistening, glorious water. I crouched on the bank, threading my fingers through the stream, watching the icy water wash away red. I pulled off my dress, thankful for my bodysuit, and drenched it in the gentle current.

Jon crouched upstream from me, drinking water from cupped hands, alternately swearing and grinning. “This place is incredible,” he said.

“Please don’t say ‘I told you so.’” I rose from my crouch, ringing out my dress, but determining it too wet to wear again. It was strange without an overdress. I felt naked.

“All right, then, I’ll just think it.”

I didn’t dignify his stupid joke with laughter. Jon frowned at me in my suit, a blush rising to my cheeks, and surprised me by removing his jacket.

“Here,” he said, passing it to me. “I don’t want you to be cold.”

“What about you?” I considered refusing, but it was too tempting to cover up.

“It’s a short walk back to the ship. I’ll live.”

It was good enough for me. As we neared the Ingram, I saw Xiao walking over to us, two coats and a tab screen in hand. She wasn’t alone.

“Hello, Stella.” Her voice struck ice through my veins. Hanada.

“What is she doing here?” I asked, balling my hands into fists at my side.

Xiao launched into peacemaker mode immediately. “Mari was in hiding with us on the Lady Liberty, and I promised Hugo that I would take care of her. Ensure her safety. So we brought her along.”

“What about Jessa? You left her behind, but brought . . . her?”

“Jessa is safely and happily in the care of Orion and Grace,” Xiao explained, laying a comforting hand on my arm, squeezing gently. “I made Orion promise to arrange for her to come down once we know it’s safe.” I felt myself begin to calm, just enough.

“What was reported in the news about me was not entirely accurate,” Hanada piped up, tone infuriatingly even. “After your experiences with Mason, I’d think you’d be willing to give me the benefit of the doubt.”

I knew exactly what had happened. Hugo had explained in his letter. Logically I understood the position she had been in, Mason blackmailing her, threatening harm to her family. But my heart hated her for creating the virus in the first place. Hugo was too forgiving.

But everyone was staring at me, waiting for an answer.

“You’re going to have to explain to everyone here, and many of them won’t forgive you, no matter how good your reasons were,” I said. Hugo would want me to forgive Mari, so I’d have to work on it. And we were going to find him safe and alive. I had to believe that.

Xiao nodded, launching into mission mode. “Mari, get what medical supplies you can from the cargo bay and tend to Sergei. We’ll be back soon.”

She ran off, leaving me confused.

“Is Sergei okay?”

“He’s mildly concussed, but Mari will tend to him. She can earn her keep with her medical know-how.” She handed the tab unit to me. “Lori’s tracking program is loaded on here, and it says the Rochester is a mile away.”

I wasn’t sure I had the strength to walk a mile, but she didn’t have to tell me twice. I gave Jon back his jacket and pulled on the heavier coat Xiao brought, leaving my dress to dry by the ship. “You’re not staying with Sergei?” I asked Xiao, whose reply was quick.

“Fussing over a man, who is mildly injured at that, is not in my wheelhouse. I’d rather find Hugo.”

We took a brisk pace, Jon serving as navigator with the tab screen aloft in front of him, following a red dot. We trudged on, first five, then ten minutes, until we could see the Rochester in the near distance. She’d come down where the grass turned to light forest, and as we came closer, my heart started to gallop. The Rochester had taken damage. The front was twisted and crumpled; it looked as if the bridge had been gutted. I broke into a run.

“Hugo?” I shouted, nearly tripping over my feet, as they were unused to sprinting across such terrain. I rounded on the ship, whose aft end had suffered its own dings, but nothing that looked catastrophic. The hold door had been forced open several feet, as if some creature had clawed it from its frame. But there were no monsters on Earth, as far as I was aware. Someone—?Hugo?—?must have used something large and metal to pry it open.

“Be careful.” Jon came up behind me, surveying the scene. “I should go up first, then pull you in.”

“I’m going to stay out here and keep guard,” Xiao said. Much to my surprise, she pulled a stunner gun from her hip. I had not been part of the planning committee that discussed weaponry. What did we think we were going to find? Still, I did not protest, letting Jon make the precarious climb up to the hold door before I followed.

I squeezed through the hole into pitch-black space, sure I was in the transport bay, though it felt wholly unfamiliar to me in the dark, with one side crunched in and debris all around. I scrunched my eyes closed, willing them to adjust, then opened them, thankful to find my own feet represented in dark shades of gray. I could at least navigate myself, and after a scan, I had a beacon: the faintest glow of an electronic light. The ship was not dead.